Conventional analgesics to drive acute pain market over the next decade

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that, through 2018, the launches and uptake of reformulations of conventional analgesics will drive annual three percent growth in the acute pain drug market in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan.

The Pharmacor 2010 findings from the topic entitled Acute Pain reveal that, aside from Merck's telcagepant—a novel CGRP receptor antagonist for the treatment of migraine—and PriCara/Grunenthal's Nucynta for the treatment of moderate to severe pain, nearly all the emerging therapies expected to launch through 2018 are reformulations of conventional analgesics that include fentanyl, oxycodone, diclofenac and bupivacaine.

"Over the next several years, at least 20 new formulations of analgesics for acute pain will launch in one or more of the seven major markets under study," said Decision Resources Analyst Sandra Chow. "The uptake of these new formulations will be driven by the much-needed improvements they offer in safety, tolerability, abuse deterrence and/or ease of use compared with currently available products."

The Pharmacor 2010 findings also reveal that the successful development of acute pain therapies that will fill niche areas of unmet need will drive the acute pain market over the next decade. The key patient segments targeted by drug developers include severe postoperative pain and breakthrough cancer pain.

"Near term opportunity in the acute pain market—which is saturated with effective and well-established treatments—lies in the development of therapies that offer either enhanced convenience or potent analgesia without opioid-like side effects for patients with severe acute pain," Ms. Chow added.